The Soul’s Vast Battle of Kurukshetra

PREVIOUSLY I’ve suggested (Uebersax, 2012, 2017) that a useful framework for understanding the psychological meanings of ancient myths is subpersonality theory (Lester, 2012; Rowan, 1990). Three leading hypotheses of this view are: (1) the human psyche can be meaningfully likened to a city or kingdom with many citizens (a situation which opens up many allegorical possibilities); (2) individual ‘citizens’ of the psyche may take the form of psychological complexes; and (3) there may potentially be a very large number — thousands or millions — of these mental citizens operating.  These hypothesis were derived by applying subpersonality theory to interpretation of the myths of the Old Testament (following hermeneutic principles laid down by Philo of Alexandria 2000 years ago), and Plato’s Republic (a work that makes much more sense interpreted as an allegory for the psyche than as a literal manual for civil politics.)

Independent confirmation of these hypotheses is found in a recent commentary on the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Kriyananda.  Relevant passages are shown below.  The Bhaghavad Gita is a section of the much larger work, the Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata.  The Mahabharata describes a vast battle on the plains of Kurukshetra between two clans, the Panduvas and the Kauravas.  Allegorically, the Panduvas symbolize our virtues, and the Kauravas our vices.  Hence the epic falls into the category (and is perhaps the most notable example) of a psychomachia myth, comparable with such Greek myths as the Titanomachy (the battles of the Olympian gods against the Titans) and the Trojan War (as mythologically chronicled in Homer’s Iliad), and with the Old Testament’s various battles and contentions between the Israelites and their enemies.

Swami Kriyananda’s allegorical interpretation of the Mahabharata follows a tradition imparted to him by his teacher, Paramhansa Yogananda (1893−1952), who either inherited or derived it from the teachings of his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar (1855−1936) — who, in turn, was influenced by his teacher, Lahiri Mahayasa (1828−1895).  While terms like “complex” are clearly modern, the basic psychological mechanisms described seem firmly planted in the yogic tradition.

Citizens of the Soul

The Bhagavad Gita presents a fascinating picture of human nature. It shows that every individual is a nation unto himself, his “population” consisting of all his qualities, both good and bad. … Over time, the innumerable experiences he encounters in life, and the way he encounters them, may develop in him innumerable “complexes.” In other words, certain aspects of his nature may insist on attack, while other aspects plead, tortoise-like, for a self-protective withdrawal. Still others may mutter helplessly in the background about “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” while still others spread a whispering campaign of malicious gossip to get “the world” to side with them, while another whole group of mental citizens may [plead] … for tolerance, forbearance, amused acceptance, or calm non-attachment. (pp. 47−48)

There may be thousands or even millions of such complexes/citizens:

[O]ur qualities assume the characteristics of individual personalities, as we become steeped in them by a repetition of the acts that involve us in them. Because of habit, they become entrenched as true “citizens” of our own nation of consciousness. … Thousands or millions of “citizens” mill about, each one bent on fulfilling his own desires and ambitions. Sigmund Freud hardly scratched the surface ….  Freud saw only the conflict between personal desire and the expectations of society. In reality the case is infinitely more complex. (p. 50)

Ranged against his upwardly directed aspirations are innumerable downward-moving tendencies which he himself created by past wrong actions, and developed into bad habits. … the forces for error are “innumerable,” whereas the forces of righteousness are “few in number.” Countless are the ways one can slip into error, even as the outside of a large circle has room for taking many approaches to the center. Uplifting virtues are few, for they lead into, and are already close to, the center of our being. Hatred can be defined in terms of countless objects capable of being hated, whereas kindness springs from the inner self, and bestows its beneficence impersonally on all. (p. 58)

Personality Integration

That we have all these inner citizens doesn’t per se necessitate constant inner conflict, although in the usual ‘fallen’ human condition that does seem to be the case.  We need not, however, suppose that the only resolution to conflict is for our virtues to utterly destroy hosts of opposing tendencies.  Rather, the goal should be one of harmonization.

One obvious strategy, then, is to try to transform, convert or sublimate recalcitrant complexes. This is perhaps symbolically represented in Plato’s Cave Allegory, where, after the philosopher rises from the cave of ignorance, he voluntarily returns to try to educate and uplift the prisoners who remain there (Republic 7.519d−520e).

Another strategy is to consciously solicit the responses of multiple subpersonalities before embarking on some course of action:

introspection (Sanjava) is the wisest course to understanding. … if by introspection one canvasses the reactions of his own mental citizens, he will have a clearer understanding of what he ought or ought not to have done and of how he ought to behave in future. (p. 58)

This corresponds well to suggestions made by Rowan (1990) in managing conflicting subpersonalities.

Indispensable in any case — and this appears to be a key message of the Bhagavad Gita — is to withhold a strong ego-identification from any particular complex.  It is not really complexes themselves that cause conflict, but only when we mistakenly identify them as who we are.

Further study and application of subpersonality to the interpretation of myths seems warranted.  Modern psychologists can learn much about personality integration and self-realization by studying the Indian mythological epics such as the Mahabharata, Bhagavad Gita, and the Ramayana. Indian myths, Greek myths, the stories of the Old Testament, and even Plato’s Republic can be understood using a common set of hermeneutical principles.  They supply multiple maps of a common terrain, the human soul.  Their messages — salvation of the soul by means of Wisdom, virtue, holiness and, above all, love of God — are the same.

first draft 27 July 2021

References

Assagioli, Roberto. Psychosynthesis. London: Turnstone, 1975.

Swami Kriyananda. The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita Explained by Paramhansa Yogananda. Crystal Clarity Publishers, 2008. ebook  audio book 

Lester, David. A Multiple Self Theory of the Mind. Comprehensive Psychology, 2012, 1, 5.

Rowan, John. Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us. London, 1990.

Uebersax, John. Psychological Allegorical Interpretation of the Bible. Paso Robles: El Camino Real Books, 2012.

Uebersax, John. Psychopolis: Plato’s Inner Republic and Personality Theory. Satyagraha weblog. 12 January 2017.

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The Hopi Migration Myth and the Destiny of Humankind

THE following origins legend describes the migrations of the Hopi people after they emerged from the Sacred Cave of the Earth. Beyond whatever else it may mean, it serves as a wonderful allegory for the history of the human race:  once we were all one tribe, but over the course of millennia we have divided into countless clans and migrated all over the earth.  But it is our destiny to retrace our steps and join together again, with each ethnic group contributing what unique things it has learned during this vast collective enterprise into a shared store of human knowledge.  Understood in this way, our cultural differences are one of the greatest and most valuable possessions.  Whenever ethnic differences become a source of strife and contention, we should stop and say: “Wait!  Aren’t we missing the important point here?”

The Four Migrations

And now before Masaw turned his face from them and became invisible, he explained that every clan must make four directional migrations before they all arrived at their common, permanent home. They must go to the ends of the land—west, south, east, and north—to the farthest paso (where the land meets the sea) in each direction. Only when the clans had completed these four movements, rounds, or steps of their migration could they come together again, forming the pattern of the Creator’s universal plan.

That is the way it was. Some clans started to the south,  others to the north, retraced their routes to turn east and west, and then back again. All their routes formed a great cross whose center, Tuwanasavi [Center of the Universe], lay in what is now the Hopi country in the southwestern part of the United States, and whose arms reached to the four directional pasos. As they turned at each of these extremities they formed of this great cross a swastika, either clockwise or counter-clockwise,  corresponding to the movement of the earth or of the sun. And then when their migrations slowed as they reached their permanent home, they formed spirals and circles, ever growing smaller. All these patterns formed by their four migrations are the basic motifs of the symbols still found today in their pottery and basketware, on their kachina rattles and altar boards.

Often one clan would come upon the ruins of a village built by a preceding clan and find on the mound broken pieces of pottery circling to the right or to the left, indicating which way the clan had gone. Throughout the continent these  countless ruins and mounds covered with broken pottery are still being discovered. They constitute what the people call now their title to the land. Everywhere, too, the clans carved on rocks their signatures, pictographs and petroglyphs which identified them, revealed what round of their migration they were on, and related the history of the village.

Still the migrations continued. Some clans forgot in time the commands of Masaw, settling in tropical climates where life was easy, and developing beautiful cities of stone that were to decay and crumble into ruin. Other clans did not complete all four of their migrations before settling in their permanent home, and hence lost their religious power and standing. Still others persisted, keeping open the doors on top of their heads. These were the ones who finally realized the purpose and the meaning of their four migrations.

For these migrations were themselves purification ceremonies, weeding out through generations all the latent evil brought from the previous Third World. Man could not  succumb to the comfort and luxury given him by indulgent  surroundings, for then he lost the need to rely upon the Creator. Nor should he be frightened even by the polar extremities of the earth, for there he learned that the power given him by the Creator would still sustain him. So, by traveling to all the farthest extremities of the land during their four migrations, these chosen people finally came to settle on the vast arid plateau that stretches between the Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers.

Many other people today wonder why these people chose an area devoid of running water to irrigate their sparse crops, the Hopi people know that they were led here so that they would have to depend upon the scanty rainfall which they must evoke with their power and prayer, and so preserve always that knowledge and faith in the supremacy of their Creator who had brought them to this Fourth World after they had failed in three previous worlds.

This, they say, is their supreme title to this land, which no secular power can refute.

Source: Waters, Frank; Fredericks, Oswald White Bear. Book of the Hopi. New York: Ballantine Books, 1969; pp. 41 ff.

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Preventing the Next Pandemic: David Relman on the Perils of Gain-of-Function Research

DAVID RELMAN of Stanford has been a voice of sanity and ethical responsibility concerning gain-of-function (GoF) research.  Last May, for example, he organized the letter of 18 prominent scientists to the journal, Science, arguing that the lab-leak origin hypothesis for CoV-2 —strangely suppressed by governments, news and social media, and even scientific journals — needs serious consideration.In 2014 he delivered a talk on the risks of GoF research at a National Academy of Sciences workshop.  His and similar input from other responsible scientists led to a moratorium on such research. The talk makes a slam-dunk case that the risks of GoF research outweigh the potential benefits. Key points include:

1. Social injustice. If an accident causes a pandemic, developed countries can vaccinate their populations, but poor countries cannot. So poor countries bear the brunt of the risks, without any benefits.
2. Precautionary principle. Beyond anticipated risks (e.g., a leaked virus), we can be virtually certain that unanticipated complications will occur (e.g., a new mutation). Hence all such deliberations should be heavily biased towards extreme conservativism.
3. Alternatives. We don’t need to produce a super-virus in order to be prepared for one. Safer alternatives exist.

Importantly, Relman also considers institutional biases that favor inappropriately pursuing unnecessarily risky research. These include:

1. Financial incentives by a massive and growing biotechnology industry.
2. Egoism and ‘careerism’ amongst individual scientists.

We can add two other biases which he didn’t mention (except perhaps obliquely).

First, while the input of Relman and others led to a moratorium on GoF research, the NIH waived from the moratorium anything deemed vital for “national security.”  The Defense Department (DoD) routinely develops experimental vaccines, so that if some new pandemic emerges, troops can be vaccinated and prepared for combat; hence they may have insisted that SARS CoV-2 GoF research continue for that reason. (Some news sources claim that Peter Daszak’s group received millions in DoD funding for SARS research).

Moreover, it is very possible that China has been doing SARS GoF research for many years.  In that case, the DoD can easily argue, “Since China’s doing this, we need to do it too, in order to be prepared for a bio-attack.”  Ironically, China’s rational for doing such research may be the same – so, like the nuclear arms race, it’s a vicious circle.

The second unmentioned bias is NIH bureaucracy, which, like any bureaucracy, tends to create circumstances favorable to its own expansion and increased funding.

So what can be done to prevent a human-made pandemic? Relman’s talk gives a couple of suggestions. One is greater involvement by organizations of ethical scientists (National Academy, Union of Concerned Scientists).  These need to insist to world governments that this kind of research is suicidal and must stop. Another is to involve humanists, ethicists and theologians into risk-benefit discussions.  Finally, we need improved and more standardized methods for risk assessment.

Readings

Lipsitch, Marc; Relman, David A.; Inglesby, Thomas V. Six policy options for conducting gain-of-function research. CIDRAP: Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Online article. Mar 08, 2016.

National Research Council. Potential risks and benefits of gain-of-function research: Summary of a workshop. Washington, DC, 2015.

National Research Council. Gain-of-function research. Summary of the second symposium, March 10−11, 2016. Washington, DC, 2016.

World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). The Precautionary Principle. March 2005. [pdf]

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Václav Havel: Living in the Truth as the Remedy for the New Totalitarianism

Abrilliant 1978 essay by Czech dissident/president Vaclav Havel has five key takeaway messages for the present crises in American politics. These relate to: (i) post-totalitarianism as a new form of mass subjugation; (ii) the expansively bureaucratic nature of post-totalitarianism; (iii) ideology as its central pillar; (iv) conformity as essential for its continuance; and (v) possible solutions — most importantly, a realignment of individual and cultural values to what he called “living in the truth“.

These are briefly explained below, though no short summary does adequate justice to Havel’s insightful and well-written essay. (See Readings for links to free versions.)

1. Post-totalitarianism

By post-totalitarianism Havel meant a new form of totalitarianism that has emerged in the modern era. If differs from “classical dictatorship” in several respects.  First, whereas classical dictatorships are unique, historical aberrations — often based on a cult of personality — post-totalitarianism is rooted in the history of ideas (e.g., draped in the mantle of 19th century socialist theories and Enlightenment political liberalism);

Second, as a government system, post-totalitarianism outlives changes in political leaders and ruling parties:

a post-totalitarian system, after all, is not the manifestation of a particular political line followed by a particular government. It is something radically different: it is a complex, profound, and long-term violation of society, or rather the self-violation of society. To oppose it merely by establishing a different political line and then striving for a change in government would not only be unrealistic, it would be utterly inadequate, for it would never come near to touching the root of the matter.

Third, whereas classical dictatorships use direct force to oppress and control the masses, post-totalitarianism uses indirect methods (see ‘Conformity’ below).

Fourth, means of overturning classical dictatorships, including revolution and elections, are ineffective here.

Even if revolt were possible, however, it would remain the solitary gesture of a few isolated individuals and they would be opposed not only by a gigantic apparatus of national (and supranational) power, but also by the very society in whose name they were mounting their revolt in the first place. (This, by the way, is another reason why the regime and its propaganda have been ascribing terroristic aims to the “dissident” movements and accusing them of illegal and conspiratorial methods.)

2. Bureaucracy

Post-totalitarianism takes the form of an expansive and omnipotent bureaucracy.  It begins with the government itself, but enlarges to assimilate business, news and communication media, education, and cultural institutions.  Fundamentally amoral and unprincipled, its main aim is to preserve itself and to expand.  Any threat to its power is met with savage (and inevitably effective) opposition.

3. Ideology

Havel’s insights about the role of ideology in post-totalitarianism are one of the essay’s greatest contributions.  Ideology supplies two main functions in a post-totalitarian system: excusatory and administrative.

Excusatory function. First, it’s the means by which the bureaucracy legitimizes itself:

Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with these.

Ideology, [creates] a bridge of excuses between the system and the individual … a world of appearances trying to pass for reality.

The primary excusatory function of ideology, therefore, is to provide people, both as victims and pillars of the post-totalitarian system, with the illusion that the system is in harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.

It enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi.

It supplies a veil behind which human beings can hide their own fallen existence, their trivialization.

Administrative function. Second, ideology supplies the means by which a totalitarian system organizes and communicates with itself.

Ideology plays a central role in the complex machinery of the post-totalitarian system. It supplies indirect instruments of manipulation which ensure in countless ways the integrity of the regime, leaving nothing to chance.

Ideology offers a fundamental world view, with which to interpret every event, activity and entity in the world of human affairs. It supplies virtually a “metaphysical order” that “guarantees the inner coherence of the totalitarian power structure,” and “integrates its communication system and makes possible the internal exchange and transfer of information and instructions.”

In order for post-totalitarian ideology to operate effectively, it must reign in every area of society. No threat to it, and no opposing alternative ideology, can be permitted to emerge. Unchallenged, the ideology becomes increasingly removed from reality.

As the interpretation of reality by the power structure, ideology is always subordinated ultimately to the interests of the structure. Therefore, it has a natural tendency to disengage itself from reality, to create a world of appearances, to become ritual. In societies where there is public competition for power and therefore public control of that power, there also exists quite naturally public control of the way that power legitimates itself ideologically. [Usually] there are always certain correctives that effectively prevent ideology from abandoning reality altogether. Under [post-totalitarianism], however, these correctives disappear, and thus there is nothing to prevent ideology from becoming more and more removed from reality, gradually turning into … a world of appearances, a mere ritual, a formalized language deprived of semantic contact with reality and transformed into a system of ritual signs that replace reality with pseudo-reality.

Yet, as we have seen, ideology becomes at the same time an increasingly important component of power, a pillar providing it with both excusatory legitimacy and an inner coherence. As this aspect grows in importance, and as it gradually loses touch with reality, it acquires a peculiar but very real strength. It becomes reality itself, albeit a reality altogether self-contained, one that on certain levels (chiefly inside the power structure) may have even greater weight than reality as such. Increasingly, the virtuosity of the ritual becomes more important than the reality hidden behind it. The significance of phenomena no longer derives from the phenomena themselves, but from their locus as concepts in the ideological context. Reality does not shape theory, but rather the reverse.

Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.

4. Conformity

Yet, Havel claims, the post-totalitarian system and its tissue of lies require the tacit or active endorsement of the masses.

Individuals need not believe all these mystifications, but they must behave as though they did, or they must at least tolerate them in silence, or get along well with those who work with them. For this reason, however, they must live within a lie. They need not accept the lie. It is enough for them to have accepted their life with it and in it.

For by this very fact, individuals confirm the system, fulfill the system, make the system, are the system…

by accepting the prescribed ritual, by accepting appearances as reality, by accepting the given rules of the game. In doing so, however, he has himself become a player in the game, thus making it possible for the game to go on, for it to exist in the first place

the moment that excuse is accepted, it constitutes power inwardly

everyone in his own way is both a victim and a supporter of the system. What we understand by the system is not, therefore, a social order imposed by one group upon another, but rather something which permeates the entire society and is a factor in shaping it.

The American post-totalitarian system is especially insidious in its use of economic and other incentives to gain the support of the population and their acceptance of self-oppression.

Even progressive liberals are heavily invested in the status quo (and even literally so, as they see their retirement portfolios grow while the Dow Jones Industrial Average increases year after year, regardless of the injustices Wall Street perpetrates to ensure profits. The public is addicted wholesale to social media like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, which collude with the security state.  A large proportion of jobs exist within oppressive corporations and government institutions.

5. Solutions

If the essence of post-totalitarianism is construction of a false reality, and if the people themselves maintain the system by living a lie within it, then, Havel argues, the only real solution is for people to begin again living in the truth.

A genuine, profound, and lasting change for the better — as I shall attempt to show — can no longer result from the victory (were such a victory possible) of any particular traditional political conception, which can ultimately be only external, that is, a structural or systemic conception. More than ever before, such a change will have to derive from human existence, from the fundamental reconstitution of the position of people in the world, their relationships to themselves and to each other, and to the universe. If a better economic and political model is to be created, then perhaps more than ever before it must derive from profound existential and moral changes in society. This is not something that can be designed and introduced like a new car. If it is to be more than just a new variation of the old degeneration, it must above all be an expression of life in the process of transforming itself. A better system will not automatically ensure a better life. In fact, the opposite is true: only by creating a better life can a better system be developed.

There is an emphasis on the word “living” here.  Havel does not mean paying lip service to the truth, or raging against lies. Living in the truth is an existential solution that occurs first at the individual level, and then at a cultural level. Words, manifestos, articles and books are not enough. The revolution is an accumulation of individual shifts in personal consciousness, to experiential anamnesis of the True, the Beautiful and the Good.

Part of the solution, Havel argues, is dissent — but (and this is very important) only certain forms of dissent. Many forms of dissent are ineffective and counter-productive.

An essential part of the “dissident” attitude is that it comes out of the reality of the human here and now. It places more importance on often repeated and consistent concrete action — even though it may be inadequate and though it may ease only insignificantly the suffering of a single insignificant citizen — than it does in some abstract fundamental solution in an uncertain future.

Another form of living in the truth is legal challenges. Legal challenges are, so to speak, an Achilles’ heel of the post-totalitarian system, because it needs to legitimize itself in laws.

In other words, is the legalistic approach at all compatible with the principle of living within the truth? This question can only be answered by first looking at the wider implications of how the legal code functions in the post-totalitarian system. In a classical dictatorship, to a far greater extent than in the post-totalitarian system, the will of the ruler is carried out directly, in an unregulated fashion. A dictatorship has no reason to hide its foundations, nor to conceal the real workings of power, and therefore it need not encumber itself to any great extent with a legal code. The post-totalitarian system, on the other hand, is utterly obsessed with the need to bind everything in a single order: life in such a state is thoroughly permeated by a dense network of regulations, proclamations, directives, norms, orders, and rules. (It is not called a bureaucratic system without good reason.)

Like ideology, the legal code functions as an excuse. It wraps the base exercise of power in the noble apparel of the letter of the law; it creates the pleasing illusion that justice is done, society protected, and the exercise of power objectively regulated.

Because the system cannot do without the law, because it is hopelessly tied down by the necessity of pretending the laws are observed, it is compelled to react in some way to such appeals. Demanding that the laws be upheld is thus an act of living within the truth that threatens the whole mendacious structure at its point of maximum mendacity.

They have no other choice: because they cannot discard the rules of their own game, they can only attend more carefully to those rules. Not to react to challenges means to undermine their own excuse and lose control of their mutual communications system.

But more than anything else Havel understands living in the truth as something apolitical. The root problem is that we are a false society composed of false selves. We must concentrate on creating a new, authentic culture, one person at a time.

Above all, any existential revolution should provide hope of a moral reconstitution of society, which means a radical renewal of the relationship of human beings to what I have called the “human order,” which no political order can replace. A new experience of being, a renewed rootedness in the universe, a newly grasped sense of higher responsibility, a new-found inner relationship to other people and to the human community — these factors clearly indicate the direction in which we must go.

In other words, the issue is the rehabilitation of values like trust, openness, responsibility, solidarity, love.

In view of this, how ironic it is that since Havel’s time a different paradigm of regime change has prevailed in Eastern Europe.  Instead of living in the truth, the US (via the CIA), globalized corporations, and dubiously-aligned NGOs have used covert activities and mass propaganda to not only to impose changes of government, but to assassinate truth.

Comparison with Sorokin

Havel’s ideas here invite comparison with those of Pitirim Sorokin, who also called for a moral reconstruction of humanity in responses to the crises of modern culture.  While their views are similar, Sorokin (armed with his massive historical studies of human culture) arguably delved more deeply into what such a reconstruction would look like, and how it might be accomplished. For one thing, he was much more aware of the role of traditional spirituality in effecting such changes. He also placed great emphasis on the experience of Love (agape) as a central positive cultural value. Finally, Sorokin understood that ultimately solutions must come from higher sources of inspiration — the supraconscious.  Without strong or definite religious convictions, Havel — for all his excellencies — could only grope in the dark about matters of spirituality. He agreed that rationalism itself could supply no answers, but could only discuss transcendence in vague terms (e.g. Havel, 1993).  More than once Havel quoted the words of Heidegger, to the effect that in the crises of modernity “Only a God can save us now.”  Whereas Havel could leave this as no more than a poetic expression, Sorokin could carry it to is logical conclusion: “Fortunately, there is a God, to whom we should turn.”

Note: Quotations have been edited and rearranged in places; please compare with original source before excerpting anything.

Readings

Havel, Václav. The power of the powerless. Paul Wilson, tr. In: John Keane (ed.), The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe, M. E. Sharpe, 1985. Orig. publ. in International Journal of Politics, vol. 15, no. 3/4, 1985, pp. 23–96.  [pdf version] [plain text version]

Havel, Václav. The need for transcendence in the postmodern world. The Futurist, July−August 1995. Speech delivered in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1994.

Sorokin, Pitirim. The Reconstruction of Humanity. Boston: Beacon Press, 1948.

Sorokin, Pitirim A. The Ways and Power of Love: Types, Factors, and Techniques of Moral Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1954; repr. Templeton Foundation, 2002.  [ebook]

Related posts

• Abraham Maslow: How to Experience the Unitive Life
• A Meditation on Man’s Transcendent Dignity
• Beyond the Pyramid. Being-Psychology: Maslow’s Real Contribution
• Culture in Crisis: The Visionary Theories of Pitirim Sorokin
• Pitirim Sorokin: Techniques for the altruistic transformation of individuals and society
• Transcendentalism as Spiritual Consciousness

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